Blot on the Beltline, Part 1

It’s an exciting time to be living in the Beltline right now. It seems like every time you turn about, there’s a new condominium tower being built, and the idea of so many people wanting to live, work, and play at the centre of this burgeoning city just warms the cockles of my heart. With the wide variety of public spaces and entertainment places a short walk away, it’s enough to give someone high hopes for the future of this town.

Which is why this place right here, the Stupor Drug Mart on the corner of 14 Street and 12 Avenue SW, drives me absolutely nucking futs:

I stood up and cheered when the riffraffatorium that called itself the 12 Avenue Bar and Grill was drummed out of the southwest corner of this eyesore back in March. With that being said, however, I can’t pass by this place without wondering when the rest of the building is going to come down. I’m sure it served its purpose back in the Sixties, when it first opened with a groceteria and a TD Bank branch, but the years have been kind neither to the building, uncomfortably straddling the boundary between the Beltline and Sunalta as a monument to entropy and decay, nor to the clientèle, left to pick through the second-hand Safeway’s labels and the low-grade dollar shop tchotchkes. Indeed, I doubt that even a New West answer to Ed Mirvish would be able to salvage the place--that would take people who actually cared a wet slap for their customers, and especially in this inflationary town, that sort of employee tends to steer a wide berth past the Stupor Drug Mart.

You know what I’d like to do, folks? I’d like to climb up on the roof of that place and paint a nice big fluorescent bullseye on the roof--you know, just to give the Klingons a sporting chance at hitting something, right? After all, there’s too much potential for something nicer, something more liveable, something less decrepit at that location for the Stupor Drug Mart to be suffered to live.